raised in North Denver, the so called "highlands". I grew up in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood, and I was smaller than most of my peers, and pale with red hair so I stuck out like a sore thumb, and I was bullied pretty incessantly. I was raised by my mother. My father lived nearby but I didn't know him well and he was abusive and had substance abuse issues. He taught me quite a bit about being myself though. he showed me and the other kids around the neighborhood how to make wooded swords and things like that and there would be these epic medieval battles in the alleys behind the house. 

as for a website www.myspace.com/oscify and www.sprucegooserecords.com are good ones

my next show will be with my band Magnificent Wingspan and is at Hodi's Halfnote on August 9th with Mr. Dibbs & One Be Lo.

This week I finished mastering an album called "Breathe Easy Soon" and it will be available for free at www.sprucegooserecords.com and in stores by the time this article presses. Its a very important album to me personally because its a farewell to the lenses through which I used to view life. It's a mix of pop-songs, introspective songs, funny songs and weird songs, and I think its also an expansion on what a hip hop album can be artistically and what it means to create so-called conscious hip-hop.

when I was in high school I had the rap name, "the lyrical miracle" (horrible, I know), and one day when I was working the go kart track at this mini golf place, the idea of Doctor Oscify came to me... at the time I knew that ossified was 1920's slang for getting drunk, but i later learned that ossification is the process of cartilege hardening into bone. So the thing is, when we're first born, all of our bones are cartilege, and its only after we die that the cartilege deteriorates leaving nothing left but bone, so this ossification is a process that spans a human's entire physical existence. my personal philosophy on life goes something like that, you know, never being complete until after death... the Doctor prefix is partially a homage to Dr. Dre, and Dr. Octagon, and partially formed in the idea that an entertainer can also be shaman. lengthy explanation, but its the truth.. 

I would have to say that I enjoy both solo work and collaborative work equally. I love that in my solo material I have final say in every aspect of the music, but often I find that to truly realize my creative vision, I require the assistance of other artists. I can't for example, play the saxophone although I may write a piece of music with that instrument in mind. On the other hand, true creative collaboration can be amazing because of the way the energies of different perspectives play off of eachother. I am a rather prolific artist, and I'm grateful that I don't have to choose one over the other. 

some of my earliest memories are of myself with an ear up against a speaker larger than myself listening to KTCL and KBCO in the eighties. as a little kid, I was always formulating lymrics and short songs and when I was 12 or so I began jotting songs down in notebooks I had. they ranged from hard rock to ska to rap and punk and were all pretty awful. when I was 14 I picked up a guitar and never looked back. I was in punk and metal bands throughout high school, singing and playing guitar and bass, and at the same time I was recording these low tech songs on a four track tape recorder. all kinds of stuff, rap, industrial type stuff and I also did recordings of some of the bands I was in. After I graduated, the girl I was dating kept asking me to do more rap stuff and so I started to really focus on honing the craft. Over the next few years I made it my mission to learn everything there was to know about about making rap music, from rhyme structures and patterns to how to make the beats. My freshman year of college I ate some psychedelic mushrooms which completely reshifted my view of what kind of music I wanted to make, but for me, hip-hop fit into this new paradigm. I felt like I could do anything with hip hop from telling stories, to deconstructing reality to just blowing some steam off. during my junior year of college an indie label form detroit approched me about doing an album, and during the course of recording this album, I realized that my purpose was to create music, not get a history degree. I dropped out and the record didn't quite do what i'd expected. for a while I felt as though all was lost, but I kept recording and performing. Since then I've produced a plethora of material that I'm quite proud of. 

As for the future, I do have some rather ambitious goals. In as 2009 rolls into 2010, I plan on expanding my audience tenfold through internet marketing, college radio, and word of mouth. In 2010, I plan on performing live around the country both as a touring act and at various festivals. Hollywood? Truthfully I do hope to act in movies and such in the future, and at the moment I am developing a reality show with my longtime collaborator Skimp Killah. (sort of a comedy documentary thing)

when I was in grade school, I was somewhat of a prodigy with visual art. I'm talking about a skill far beyond my years. But the only thing I ever heard from adults in my life was to focus on math and shit, and that artists can't make any money in the real world, and that I should give it up. By the time I got into music as a teenager, visual art had become secondary, and I was putting less and less effort into it because of what adults in my life had told me. I rarely do any visual art now and I don't particularly miss it, probably because I have music as a creative outlet. It's funny how so many told me I couldn't be an artist, and... I'm still an artist. I can't help it, and without art I have no doubt I wouldn't be alive today. 

well, that's a good question, could be anyone's guess.. my best answer is, see the answer below.  

I will be a household name. I will nurture young artists to their full potential, and when I perform, it won't be mid level clubs and bars, but large venues and stadiums. I will have contributing to expanding our existential paradigm, and I will be a trailblazer in creating new forms of entertainment. I will appear in films, produce records, paint, ski, sing and write and play guitars basses, pianos, etc, and have a great time. I will have a big enormous house with a pool and a hot tub and a whole bunch of other ameneties that I will throw some killer parties at for all my friends. I will travel the world, go on vacation when I want to where I want to, and I'm hoping the luxury wont cause me to start making bland sucky art.  

When I was a kid I wanted to be a football player, a running back. but when I went to tryouts in high school I was by far the smallest kid there... so no go on that. I also wanted to design cars, become the president, vastly improve national infrastructure, and have a super hero alter ego that was like spider man but with all the cool gadgets batman has. I also wanted to write a comic strip. 

Hip hop is a genre in a world that has far too many genres. I might continue to make what some would call hip-hop, but I have just as much affection for  folk music and reggea and rock  and country and jazz and on and on. I love rhythm and poetry (R.A.P.), but all music contains at least a little bit of that. Hip Hop is beautiful, but to me it is very small. I feel like music is very hemmed in right now and is looking for a way to escape out of the box. I am including the independents and the giants. Folks need to get a bit more creative. 

Thank you very much for interviewing me and maybe it would be cool to do a Spruce Goose Records piece at some point... cause I love those folks...